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Medieval warm period was global: http://science.sciencemag.org/...
http://co2science.org/data/mwp...
http://www.climatedepot.com/20...

Plants are evolved in a given CO2 level and their response to rapid changes is highly unpredictable - it isn't all good for plants.

Gee, maybe someone should do some experiments to find out. You know, use some actual science. Then we can make predictions that actually work, rather than extrapolations of something so complex and untestable it's easier just to spout a bunch of alarmist propaganda.

TL;DR plants not only grow faster and produce more biomass in higher CO2 concentrations, they are also more efficient in the use of water.

Ahh no.

http://www.co2science.org/arti...

But yes keep telling yourself that the warm periods weren't global and miraculously just materialized where people could record it.

Of course there is. Here's a collection of peer reviewed research (a few hundred papers) all pointing to the Medieval Warm Period being as warm or warmer as the period we're in right now (falsifying the hockey stick).

http://www.co2science.org/data...

It's interesting that most of the comments to an article like this on Slashdot is filled with people claiming that "anti-AGWers" don't have science to back up their claims - yet it's actually really easy to find the references.

Most deserts around the world are situated in the subtropical zones where the dry air from the Hadley cells descends, around 30 degrees north and south. Global warming appears to be expanding the Hadley cells somewhat which will move the desertified zones a little further toward the poles without necessarily shifting the other edges of those zones further from the equator thus expanding the desert area. For example there is evidence that southern Europe is getting drier but the southern edge of the Sahara Desert shows no signs of shifting northward.

These articles seem to disagree:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8150415.stm
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2811
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/sep/16/highereducation.climatechange
http://www.co2science.org/subject/d/summaries/desertification.php

It's from this website which provides fodder for climate change denialists: http://www.co2science.org/subject/b/summaries/biodivc3vsc4.php

Well, you're correct that the data is there. However, it doesn't tend to actually say what certain paleoclimatologists or activists would have you believe...

"They use ice core data to determine temperatures and atmospheric composition."

Correct, but they also find that CO2 rises after temperature, not before, with a lag time of at least a couple of centuries. What's interesting is that right now CO2 is rising first, which means that there are very interesting questions about the degree to which this impacts warming.

"They have calibrated those readings based on the few hundred years of written records available."

The problem is that prior to the Little Ice Age, they tend to ignore those records. The current alarmist claim is that we are in an unprecedented period of warming. The historical reality is that while the rise of CO2 prior to temperature is pretty unprecedented, the levels of warming are not. We've been this warm and warmer before, in both the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods.

How do we know this? Because the economies of the time were barter economies, and therefore the tax records were tracking goods rather than money. We actually have detailed records of what was grown where, when, and frequently how well. We have archaeological evidence and records of old vineyards at altitudes that cannot support vineyards today. We have Medieval deep water ports in Scandinavia that are not deep water ports today (the water level hasn't risen back to high enough). And then there are the hundreds of peer-reviewed proxy studies that indicate a Medieval Warm Period at least as warm as the present, if not warmer. Don't take my word for it - the Medieval Warm Period Project has been collecting and listing them: http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php

Now, all that said, this says nothing about what the impact of man-made CO2 has on the atmosphere - we are in a warm period, and we are contributing greenhouse gases to it. Some of the latest research out of NASA suggests that the actual sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is under 2 degrees: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/08/new_model_doubled_co2_sub_2_degrees_warming/

And, we also have the empirical evidence of Linzden and Choi, who did some of the first long-term research on actual solar warmth coming in vs. warmth going back out in comparison to CO2. They found that the empirical evidence suggested a warming of around 1 degree: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/16/new-paper-from-lindzen-and-choi-implies-that-the-models-are-exaggerating-climate-sensitivity/

When you actually look at the journals (which is what I try to do - when I delve into this stuff, I prefer the websites that aggregate research papers), you see far less consensus and far more active discussion. The problem is that "Our climate is changing, we're in a warm period, and we are going to need to adjust and ensure that we're not creating problems" does not read nearly as well as "Our climate is changing, it's unprecedented, and we're all going to die!"

If you haven't guessed, I'm a skeptic on this, but this means my opinion on the matter is always changeable - I go where the evidence points me. I take empirical data over computer models always, and I'm trained to look at historical trends. And, it drives me crazy when people misrepresent the history, derive the wrong conclusions from it (the history tends to indicate that we as a species do better during the warm periods, not worse), and drown out the critical research and its findings with declarations of apocalypse.

Perhaps most scientists agree, but the historians disagree. The historical evidence for a warmer MWP is overwhelming.

Where shall we start? The fact that there was increased agriculture? The fact that Greenland had arable farming settlements on what is permafrost today? The fact that vineyards in Eastern Europe were found at higher altitudes and latitudes than is possible today?

Or how about the hundreds of peer-reviewed proxy studies from the time that show a temperature ranging from .5 to 2 degrees higher than today? A database of those can be found at the Medieval Warm Period Project at http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php

The truth of the matter is that we are right on schedule for a warm period - they happen about once every thousand years. The last one, the MWP, was about .5-2 degrees warmer than today. The one before that, the Roman Warm Period, was about 2-4 degrees higher than today (and during that time, there were passes through the Alps that haven't been usable in close to two millennia). The idea that we're about to enter a climate apocalypse is fear-mongering.

Here's yet another cite:

http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/summaries/mwpafrica.php

It wasn't until activists like Mann showed up that anyone ever denied the existence of a global MWP.

Funny though, your assertion that the MWP was only regional could also be asserted for the current warm period - when you isolate specific parts of the planet, in the modern temperature record, some are notably warming, and some are notably *not* warming. Can we therefore assert that there hasn't been Global Warming, but only Regional Warming?

Furthermore, are you asserting that any extreme warming we find during the MWP in specific regions must have been completely overwhelmed by extra cold elsewhere in the world to balance it out? Do you have any evidence of extremely cold regions during the MWP that would have balanced out the warm periods we have measured in Africa, China and Europe? Was South America particularly cold according to your data during the MWP? Or Australia?

Correlation is not causation. Historical evidence shows that CO2 increases lag behind warming. The hypothesis for AGW has not been tested, and cannot be tested (there is no control to eliminate other possible causes). So, AGW claims don't fit the OP's definition of science. OTOH, one can take on faith that a model which reproduces the past will predict the future. That's religion.

A lot of peer reviewed scientific reports, of course.

Back to you.

(I'm assuming you repeated something you've heard without actually checking the facts first. Was I right?)

http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/description.php

Uh, not really... "following 14 months incubation under reduced pH conditions, all coral fragments survived and added new skeletal calcium carbonate.....This was done, however, at a reduced rate of calcification compared to fragments growing in the normal pH treatment.....Yet in spite of this reduction in skeletal growth, they report that "tissue biomass (measured by protein concentration) was found to be higher in both species after 14 months of growth under increased CO2."....." and they write that "since calcification is an energy-consuming process ... a coral polyp that spends less energy on skeletal growth can instead allocate the energy to tissue biomass,".....In concluding their paper, Krief et al. say "the long acclimation time of this study allowed the coral colonies to reach a steady state in terms of their physiological responses to elevated CO2," and that "the deposition of skeleton in seawater with arag 1 demonstrates the ability of both species to calcify by modifying internal pH toward more alkaline conditions."" [Krief, S., Hendy, E.J., Fine, M., Yam, R., Meibom, A., Foster, G.L. and Shemesh, A. 2010]

Yeah, you should be somewhat wary of trusting Wikipedia on AGW - if you think there's heated debate on the issue at Slashdot that's nothing compared to the editor wars there.

Anyway, on CO2 Science you'll find enough "local" MWP/LIA papers for a nice global integration.

http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php

Where the heck is all the "We'll destroy the world economy!!!!!!" coming from? .

Usually from the same people who have a vested interest in the status quo. We call it FUD, they call it news.

Such as this guy a climate change "expert" who just happens to be an ex-employee of Peabody Energy:

Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU) is the world's largest private-sector coal company, with 2009 sales of 244 million tons and $6 billion in revenues. Its coal products fuel 10 percent of all U.S. electricity generation and 2 percent of worldwide electricity.

Here is a list of many studies showing evidence of MWP around the globe. The wikipedia article you cite is biased toward Mann. It even prominently displays the MBH hockey stick graph! See this for an explanation of what's wrong with the hockey stick graph.

Why do you keep making these nonsense claims about climate science when you clearly have the capacity for critical thought in other subjects?

I've thought about this for the better part of the day today. I consider your question to be sincere, and I've contemplated spending quite some time writing an equally sincere and in-depth answer.

It would be quite the blog post if I did. I've realized I'll just have to make it somewhat shorter:

A few years ago I was "all in" when it came to AGW. Not just in talk but in action as well. I caused a close friend of mine to spend a considerable sum of extra money on investment-protecting the new house he built close to the sea shore since I was confident we would see several decimeters of sea rise in the next century (he raised the foundation 40cm because of my advice).

Some time after that, my critical mind (and you're correct - I do practice what I consider to be healthy scientific scepticism in all areas I track. Working as a futurist, I track quite a few) began sending off warning signals when it came to AGW due to a lot of hyperbole being spread around. I think you know what I mean - I've personally listened live to Al Gore claiming we'd see an ice free arctic in five years, that ice bears were going to go extinct and that everything from this to that were "evidence" of catastrophic global warming.

So, I decided to track the science. Read the papers. Do personal back-of-the-envelope calculations to try to verify (or falsify) the hyperbole. And, as you could expect, things didn't add up. Sure there was a lot of valid science, but it was being distored beyond recognition by people who apparently were less interested in science and more interested in pushing agendas.

Long story short - I'm now spending more than a little time making sure the actual science isn't getting lost in the reporting, and I'm doing so everywhere I see unfounded hyperbole and suppression of sound scepticism. Cases in point:

1) I tried getting more science and less politics into some AGW-related Wikipedia pages a few months ago. No go. There's an incredible agenda driven bias amongst Wikipedia admins making sure only one line, the "true" AGW line, is reflected in the articles.

2) On Slashdot, a few days after an article related to AGW has been available, some users with mod points will go through the comments and moderate anything not fully compliant with catastrophic AGW (which includes my fully sourced and paper-referencing please-do-proper-science posts) Troll and/or Overrated.

3) Name-calling. Anyone using the word "denier" (which IS a reference to holocaust denialism) or comparing AGW-sceptics with creationists (in my country, Sweden, creationism is basically unheard of) just proves the point that most of the debate around AGW is driven by non-scientific agendas.

I'd rather just do science. I fully expect most of the catastrophy-reporting around climate change to have subsided within two years and I'd be happy to return and revisit all of these discussions then :)

Anyway;

As to your comment on proxies above. The MWP and LIA are fully visible in most proxies* except tree rings. That's a problem with tree rings as a proxy, and dendrologists admit as much, not with the amplitudes of the LIA and MWP themselves. I don't really see where you get "1960s" from - I'm talking about recent findings here. I see no reason based in proper science why tree ring proxies should have their status elevated as they have in the later IPCC reports.

I believe there's an agenda showing.

*) I really like this project: http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php

That paper does not support a hockeystick - did you even read it?

According to our reconstruction, high temperatures —similar to those observed in the twentieth century before 1990— occurred around AD 1000 to 1100, and minimum temperatures that are about 0.7K below the average of 1961–90 occurred around AD 1600. This large natural variability in the past suggests an important role of natural multicentennial variability that is likely to continue.

Is the concept of "hockeystick" unclear?

With regards to your question: http://co2science.org/articles/V11/N5/C1.php

The map at the top here claims (although I haven't personally gone through them all) that there are quite a lot of peer reviewed studies all pointing to a MWP warmer than today:

http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/fraudulent-hockey-sticks-and-hidden-data/

1) Global plant biomass up 6% since the 1970s due to more CO2, and longer growing seasons. A big win on dozens of fronts, but two bear particular mention:
2) 400,000 km^2 reclaimed from desert over the same period. (Remember the panics over desertification back in the '70s? Now there was an honest-to-god(s) no bullshit environmental catastrophe well worth all the panic it was generating and more besides. And you don't hear anything about it any more, do you? Thanks, global warming!)
3) Increased crop yields, contributing to making the famines that used to regularly afflict India, China, etc. a thing of the past.
4) Decreased mortality. Deaths increase from a one degree drop in temperature at around four times the rate of a one degree rise in temperature.
5) Extra calamari! Squids get bigger and grow faster in warmer oceans.
6) Fewer typhoons/hurricanes/etc., due to increase in wind shear making them less likely to form.
7) Better beer! There's no water more pure than that from melting ice caps.

Anyway, I could go on here for a while, but if you're seriously interested, this is probably the best site for collecting actual scientific fact (as opposed to computer simulation nonsense) on the real world observed effects of increased temperature and elevated C02 levels. Strangely enough, the positive vastly outweighs the negative.

http://www.co2science.org/

There is a lot of dissent if you actually look for it. http://www.climatescience.org.nz/ http://www.co2science.org/

Remember it this way. Iceland is green, Greenland is ice.

BTW, an interesting piece (ie, it was the first entry in google) can be found at http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ar ticles/V7/N26/EDIT.jsp which notes some of history's higher temperature. I guess in 100 years time we will know if this current warming cycle is because of us or not.

• I can roll up a magazine and beat the dog
• I can fold a newpaper and whack flies
• If I sit on the train and scan through Penthouse, people will think I'm an crude, insensitive, misogynistic lout. If I do the same thing with the Penthouse hidden inside a copy of Roll Call, people know I'm a crude, insensitive, misogynistic and powerful lout, and they'll fear and respect me.
• Newspapers are good for concealing the bottle of booze
• Paper needs dead trees - lots of 'em. Extensive tree cutting decreases the ability of the ecosphere to scrub CO2. It employees unionized workers who use fossil-fuel powered tools, contributing to CO2 levels. Used paper either takes up landfill space or requires recycling, both of which employ more unionized workers using dead-dino juice. I could go on and on, but as you can see, there's nothing but upside as far as the eye can see.
• The petro-fuel and paper-based media organizations have got the "campaign contribution" process down to an art form. These "new-media" internet companies just do not understand how to grease the wheels of justice. ("justice". Ha! I love that one)
• Newspapers make good fans for the underprivileged women in church on a hot Sunday morning.
• Exactly which end of the mouse are you going to wipe your a** with?

Yes, like I said, your a wanker and habitual liar who deliberately takes things out of context as I have done here. Define "evil"?

BTW: Interested readers can check your "facts" for themselves and I encourage them to do so.

And you can look at this one. If you have a knee-jerk reaction to pass off any evidence that is contrary to your own beliefs, calling anyone that disagrees with your view an industry shill, then nothing I say is going to make a difference. I think it's sad that environmentalism has become a religion, instead of a science.

I believe that environmentalism is a good thing, we shouldn't pollute and destroy the environment. However, what most environmentalists today suggest is in essence communism, they are completely anti-capitalist.

And this from someone who feels it necessary to call me a "Knucklehead"? He didn't HAVE a counter-argument, unless you consider "You're wrong because I say so!" a counter argument.

Very well. Since neither you nor Waffle Iron can even be bothered to come up with a cogent counter-argument other than a "Neener neener, you're a big meanie" and "Watch me alter your argument in a nonsensical way to mock you with." I'll just pound you both into the ground with evidence. Apparently all you understand is Appeals to Authority, so here they are:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1496781/p osts
The source page for that post - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?page=article&Article_ ID=2319http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?page=article&A rticle_ID=2319

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt.ht m

http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,05568.cfm

http://acuf.org/issues/issue71/061104cul.asp

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ar ticles/V10/N3/C1.jsp

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/56456.st m

I can pull these links ALL DAY, but I've got work to do and a life to live.

The point is, the more evidence we gather, the more we realize that IF the world is warming (and it's a BIG if) then it's part of a natural cycle that has been taking place on our planet for Millenia, and there isn't a damn thing we can do to cause or stop it. All we would be doing by adopting the inane Kyoto accord agreements (or anything like it) would be to weaken our economy and society in such a way that should natural global warming actually happen, we wouldn't have the economic or social strength left to survive it! All it takes is an open mind and a little critical thinking and the "Global Warming" hysteria becomes just that. Hysteria not worth wasting our energy on.

If you can't see the evidence right in front of you, then you're a damn fool and I've got no more time to deal with you.

Good day sir.

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ar ticles/V9/N48/C2.jsp

Sounds like a consensus of researchers to me...

The problem with this statement is, people assume consensus means all, nearly all, or even most. When in fact it is not necessarily the case. People use fuzzy terms like consensus when they need to gloss over some weak points in their arguments. Consensus automatically minimizes counter viewpoints as non-mainstream and minority. Remember, there once was a consensus the Earth was flat, and that there were witches in Salem. Even if the consensus is the majority, that doesn't magically impart or even imply correctness.

...or, to put it another way, everyone with the equipment to validate the evidence has done so. Not as much money as the vested interests (*cough*Oil and motor industries for a start*cough*) in the status quo make from the status quo.

Do you think the scientists and researchers that happen to report results counter to your belief in global warming like having their honesty and integrity automatically called into question? Do you similarly say researchers that report results supporting global warming must be in the pockets of the big environmental interests? I'll grant you it is suspicious - on both sides - that the results of the research correlate so well with the interests that funded them. (both pro industry and pro environmental) I don't think either side is giving us completely fair, unbiased studies and results. I don't know if that is the fault of the researchers, the groups that set up the grants, the way it is reported, or what. But when we're talking about making decisions involving billions of dollars, affecting hundreds of millions of people, and the very environment we all live in, I'm not willing to accept even a little obvious bias - either way. I don't think legislators can reasonably nor in good conscious make informed decisions on this issue, yet. Not until there is a viable body of research results that are not so obviously biased either way. Or would you prefer our lawmakers go off on a tangent with known-bad information?

4. The scientist who wants to spread reflective dust into the atmosphere is also spreading BS. If it reflects, then it would reflect light back onto Earth, probably creating a greenhouse effect times ten.

Yes, because we all know that the Earth is a radiant body. Oh, wait...

I have to go off on a tangent here for a minute. This has to be, without a doubt the single dumbest idea I have ever heard in my life. I'd nominate it for one of the all-time stupidest ideas mankind has ever come up with. Why? Lets see:

• First off, no-one is sure if global warming is really happening. Yes I know, there's a "consensus" - which means only that something more than one, scientist and/or group would like us to buy-in to the theory. Funny thing is, a lot of temperature records don't support it. Most of the temperature records have "corrections" applied to them to account for land-use changes, urbanization around temperature recording sites etc. Problem is, these corrections and factors are far, far larger than the alleged trends up (or down in many cases) observed in the long-term data. That means if we're wrong in our guesses as to the effects of population, urbanization, land use etc. we can bias the data up or down and prove either global warming or the coming of an ice age. Speaking of ice ages, if global warming is for real, why is Antarctica experiencing a net gain of 29 billion tons of ice per year? This from a C02 study group... See http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ar ticles/V9/N45/C2.jsp But even if you believe in global warming, read on and you'll see why this is still the stupidest idea ever.
• He/she has no idea what the long term, or even short term, effect(s) would be on our climate. Think I'm wrong, think they know what would happen? To estimate long term effect

Sorry. I don't know how to start a new thread.

What pompous ass posts that a scientific debate "has ended" concerning something where you can't even have a control in the experiment?! This CO2 scientists isn't that sure:
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ab out/position/globalwarming.jsp

We don't have an extra earth to know what would have happened without certain stimuli, so it is a matter of empirical educated guesses. There is no hard science here.

I'm all for taking the most conservative actions concerning something as important as the planet, but it is pure drivel to say you "know for sure" something you have arrived at through correlation of data. Correlation does not prove causation. You need to have a control.

See http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ar ticles/V9/N45/C2.jsp

These days you get any freaky weather event, and it gets blamed on global warming. Even when it doesn't make sense.

Surely, more ice making it further north would, if anything, be supporting evidence for datasets that show the oceans are getting cooler? You might also note that some data sets suggest that the global warming trend is not present in the Southern Hemisphere.

There is some evidence that the icecaps melting around the edges, but getting thicker in the middle. Perhaps that's because the Sun's output is a huge factor to global warming, and there are no sunspots this year?

And here is a chart of carbon dioxide going back several million years. And, oh look, the planet is just as cool now as it ever was before. And when we hit levels of 4500 ppm back in the Silurian era, we were colder then any other time on the planet.

Sheesh. The largest increase in CO2 emissions by humans was between 1900 and 1940. Yet, the Earth somehow responded with a massive wave of cooling from 1950-1980 that caused many scientists to worry we were plunging into the next ice age. You are extrapolating 30 years of data out by a century or more. Bad Science! No Doughnut!

The fact is that we are in a period of CO2 starvation on the planet. Recent estimates have suggested that the increase in CO2 in the modern era is responsible for as much as 30% of the "extra" food that has helped to feed more than a billion people in the last 50 years. If Gore had his 280 ppm, we might be able to lay one billion people who starved to death at his feet. The law of unintended consequences runs rampant in this "catastrophe". http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ar ticles/V4/N8/EDIT.jsp

And it's not like the Earth hasn't been warmer before in human history. In the 12th century there were orange groves in Berlin and vineyards in England. http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm

More info and details here.

We're not denying it, we're just questioning wether it's linked to CO2.

PR firms are noted for producing bovine excrement. They are really good at polishing it to make it look good, but it doesn't change its essence. If you want to know where climate scientists stand, you should read stuff written by climate scientists.

The cornerstone to the IPCC Report is the Michael Mann (et el) "hockey stick" graph

CO2Science.Org is science? They use anecdotal evidence in an attempt to counter real science being performed by fairly independent labs.

Paraphrase from a front-page article on their website...
This town in Missouri is polluted as hell, and their temperature dropped 2 degrees in the past decade! Global warming? Clearly it doesn't exist!"

Of course, what do you expect from an "environmental" organization who is funded by Exxon and whose founder previously worked for the worlds largest coal company?

http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/files/corporat e/giving_report.pdf
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ab out/chairman.jsp
http://www.peabodyenergy.com/

We're not denying it, we're just questioning wether it's linked to CO2.

The cornerstone to the IPCC Report is the Michael Mann (et el) "hockey stick" graph of which the model used to generate it has been found to contain errors. I'm talking about errors according to climatologists, not politicians or newpaper editors.

Here's a wiki article that mentions it.

More info and details here.

Two reseachers from Canada, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, attempted to reconstruct the so-called MBH98 graph and wrote that the method used by Mann contained "collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data,"

AFAIK there is no more conclusive data available than what MBH98 gives. If MBH98 is fatally flawed then the whole of the IPCC's conclusions are drawn into question.

That is presuming gloabl warming is real and that it's linked to CO2.

You may be completely right and it's great for everyone to have an opinion on global warming and carbon dioxide. But is your opinion based on what you got from the media or was it formed through scientific reasoning?

Wether for or against, could any of us make a good scientific argument to support theories?

How much do you we all know about climatology?

What models did the IPCC researchers use in temperature prediction?
How were the models verified?
What's the MBH98 hockeystick graph?
What are the criticisms of the MBH98 graph?
How is temperature measured?
What's an urban heat island?
What's a microwave sounding unit?
What's the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere?
What's Hubert Peak Theory?


For anyone who's unsure, may I suggest less BBC and more science. Here's some links.

IPCC Report

realclimate

CO2 science

Temp for last 100 years

There's about 2 million more out there, thanks to a strong consensus by people who do this for a living.

Again, science is not a consensus discipline. For example, the strong consensus in the '70s was that we were about to enter a new ice age. Nothing of the sort seems to be the case today. In a very real sense, scientific progress comes about not from the 100 corroborating experiments but from the single anomalous one.

The data provided in your link is interesting but the source is obviously biased and every particular claim easily disputed. Your "2 minutes of Googling" could equally have turned up http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/da ta/ushcn/stationoftheweek.jsp, for example.

More importantly your link doesn't address the fundamental questions: to what extent is the climate changing, what kinds of effects will this have, to what extent can or should we prevent it?

The original poster, being a fanatic, doesn't entertain any of these questions. For a fanatic, it's only important to know that a) the sky is falling, b) we are to blame, and c) they are morally superior to everyone who doesn't see it that way.

Whereas for normal people, the question is one of compromise: to what extent is climate change actually happening, to what extent can we manage or control the risks of climate change, and to what extent do we sacrifice other desirable goals in order to curb the risk.

As pointed out in Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything", the Earth has gone through a number of heating/cooling periods (cycles) and the current cycle is way overdue. This got me thinking about how much of the current global warming phenomenon is actually due to the use of fossil fuels and how much is the inevitable. There's no denying that our overuse of fossil fuels and our energy inefficient lifestyle has some blame but it would put things into perspective to know just how much. Here is a fairly reasonable article but if anyone else has any others please share.

Free Flat Screen HERE!

Many scientists are also predicting global warming to also slow or destroy the circulatory system of the ocean, or the Thermohaline Circulation. However, this is part of what powers Hurricanes. The Gulf stream (sorry, I'm from the US) flows up from the Carribean across the shores of the Atlantic Coastal States and back up and across towards Europe. If this conveyor belt were to be disrupted (forgetting the dramatic climactic changes that would already occur) it seems to me that Hurricanes hitting the US would be weaker as there would be less warm water moving up the East Coast of the US since warm water is what powers Hurricanes.

I am certainly not a meteorologist, but it seems that these two catastrophe scenerios do not coexist well. I suppose Hurricanes could be much worse around the equator. Any thougts on all that?

CO2 at low level vs. high level doesn't make much difference (even if manmade CO2 is responsible for the earth's increasing temperature)

As for air polution, ever the worst places is well within "good" levels. PM10's are pretty bad. Main culprit? Diesels - i.e. busses in towns.

CO2 at low level vs. high level doesn't make much difference (even if manmade CO2 is responsible for the earth's increasing temperature)

As for air polution, ever the worst places is well within "good" levels. PM10's are pretty bad. Main culprit? Diesels - i.e. busses in towns.

Every time some miniscule issue comes up that doesn't have any significant bearing on the main question of humans=>CO2=>warming, like this (rather dubious) article, it gets trumpeted in headlines all over the place. Where are the headlines for the thousands of mainstream articles and studies that show every single climate model with increasing CO2 resulting in increasing global temperatures, greater warming in the north, greater instability in weather generally, and in short exactly the pattern of change we have seen for the last decade?

This is a really serious issue - there is OVERWHELMING scientific evidence for human causation of global temperature increases over the last century, and for an acceleration of the change in the last ten years. Take a look at this graph of CO2 concentrations over the past 1000 years, from the site of an organization that looks at the "positive side" of climate change! Anybody who doesn't find that graph extremely worrying has been drinking way too much of the happy juice.

Posting this as newsworthy less than a week after it was published in a journal is silly. Research takes time, debunking research takes more time.

The authors of the original paper have posted their rebutal already (as linked to by Millionth Monkey. At the moment its still a virtual mud-fight, each side calling the others' data and method wrong.

The abstract from this paper reads like a shotgun attack on the original paper, if your going to critique another author's work it helps not call their data obselete and their method poor, at least not in the abstract. You have a better chance of cooperation and admission of error then.

Both authors of this paper also seem to be first time authors in the field (not that the data should be discounted on that fact alone), McIntyre has no apparent affiliation with a university and McKitrick is an Economist (who has published before, albeit in book form).

For further backup of their theory, more sources are needed (they don't appear to include any supportive references). For example, we have John Daly's account of the hockey stick. There's also Massan's critique, showing essentially the same thing (medieval warm period being ignored by Mann et al.) This data seems to have been sourced from The Greening Earth Society, which, conveniently, is a Oil lobbying organisation.

We can find even more Oil funded rebutals to the original Mann paper, 1,2 (a tenuous link to the Greening Earth Society and General Motors...)

Citing a paper, published in the last week, submitted by an Anonymous Reader (to Slashdot), using the National Post and USA Today as supporting material isn't the proper way to do serious science. The USA Today article opens with " An important new paper in the journal Energy & Environment". The paper is a week old!

Anyway, at least I have some fun reading tonight, ooh, and some data to play with.

It could very well be that high levels of CO2 will _decrease_ the warming. [link1] & [link2]

(PS: I do not consider there to be any "greenhouse gases" since no one really knows the net effect of having them in the atmosphere)

(ps: There were lots of people on FidoNet who considered me stupid ;) I like to think of it as them being wrong and me right .. ehrm .. )

I'm not aware that the warming of Alaska would ever be bad, but of course, some people might think so. The problem is that local warming in Alaska isn't part of a global trend, and that carbon dioxide isn't the cause of global warming.

Even more evidence that the whole controversy over global warming is junk science.

... while forests - which absorb carbon dioxide emissions - are completely destroyed and freshwater supplies become scarce and polluted.

Don't be fooled by this propaganda! Remember general chemistry: CO2 + H2O + light energy ---> (CH2O)n + O2 ... Plants 'EAT' CO2 and make oxygen! Also see this site for some good information.

Besides that CO2 emissions from volcano eruptions and output from the Ocean far surpass those from humans for the same time period. Just think, the oceans output such a large amount CO2 because ALL LIVING THINGS release CO2.

Trees Spend More Time Sequestering Carbon with More CO2 in the Air

says planting trees is a good idea.

There is no doubt the climate is getting warmer, but if CO2 is the reason, why was the earth far warmer than today when we had no CO2 emissions at all?

Personally I doubt the CO2 theory. It doesnt explain earlier climate changes. And if the CO2 theory is invalid, it takes resources away from dealing with the actual problems a climate change we can do nothing about will cause.

(Of course, there are many reasons why we should decrease CO2 emissions anyway, but I dont think global warming is one of them.)